FOR PAULYWOW.

[waltonbasinman]

Attached is a picture of the most significant monument in the landscape near you Paul. The large circular feature is thought to be the boundary of the Saxon church site. It was not excavated when the barns were built as nothing was thought to be there. Since then over 50 crop marks are known in the area along with a more indepth knowledge of the written sources and maps. Most of the ground is from silted up marshland and the cropmarks would appear to sit on islands of higher dry land. As I said in my PM Paul expect everything from the Neolithic on

[nfl]

thank you paul intesting to note that the field the cropmak is has produced roman 1st cent finds onwards but no saxon as yet,,,the field to the right of cropmark is where to date have found a very healthy count of 19 hammies so far.

[waltonbasinman]

A larger overview of the area. Your house Paul is the Yellow X with the circle cropmark. Red X,s are all ring ditch cropmarks. The Orange X,s are the Neolithic Enclosures. Purple MS is the site of named settlements from Doomsday Book. Notice how they are equally spaced out on the North side of the river on the ground just above the flood plain and where there should be a Medieval settlement  is your sight instead. I believe this is because you have the remnants of a Roman estate being broken up 600 years later and the church is the landowner selling it off in equal portions. (my theory anyway). The yellow line is the old river course and everything south of this to the modern river course is flood plain. This perhaps happened when the castle was swept away in the medieval period. The amount of hammered coins is perhaps indicitive of a River side industry with four settlements so close together and they are just out of site to one of the major players in medieval Britain at Cli****d. A document in Hereford Records Office has a mention of a monastic cell at Wi******n just prior to the Norman invasion. No evidence of this has been found of that I am aware.

[nfl]

also intresting to note the amount of neolithic cropmarks,,,i do find plenty of flint shards on this particular strech of land.

[waltonbasinman]

When you look at the River in context with any period from the Neolithic on it is a un-blocked routeway to the sea and I am sure would have been a very busy place until the invention of the motorcar, railways etc.

[nfl]

i agree ,,its also intresting to note that most finds come from the part of the land whre the original river falls away to the south [sort of like a bowl shaped landmass],i guess it makes sense for his area to see a lot of activty away from the floods e t c